Michael Foster, a former Labour parliamentary political candidate (PPC) whose family have donated £400,000 to the party, said that he would be challenging Corbyn’s right to automatically appear on the ballot in the leadership race.

Foster is not without a history of public confrontations himself. In 2015, he was accused of bombarding a fellow PPC with a tirade of abuse at a hustings in Cornwall. He was reported to have launched at Mebyon Kernow candidate Loveday Jenkin, saying “You c***. If you pick on me again I will destroy you”, after she questioned him about his potential bias towards the proposed “mansion tax”, owing to the fact he owned two homes, both worth over £1m.